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Members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) observation mission assess the Parliamentary elections in Armenia held on Sunday as calm, transparent, and well-administered, Sergey Lebedev, the head of the observation mission stated at a press conference on Monday, rounding up the preliminary results of their monitoring throughout Armenia. 

Lebedev stressed they visited Armenia at the invitation of the country’s authorities and have conducted observation mission since March 14.

“Our observers visited 1,215 precincts on the election day throughout the territory of the republic. All doors were open for us, we received all requested materials to get familiarized with,” Lebedev noted, adding in terms of transparency of the electoral process organization Armenian partners exceeded even some of the western states.

“In our assessment, technical innovations made the electoral process more transparent and open. Those were introduced on public demand to exclude possible fraud and irregularities. Technical equipment certainly a bit complicated the electoral process, especially for elderly people, yet they caused no significant problems,” the head of the observation mission said.

To remind, Parliamentary elections were held on April 2 in Armenia with 60,86% voter turnout, according to initial data, released by the Central Electoral Committee (CEC). Five political parties and four election blocs took part in the election to get seats in the country’s legislative body on proportional voting system.

According to the CEC-released preliminary results, four political forces enter the parliament with the ruling Republican party leading with 49.21% of the votes.

More than 28,000 representatives of 49 non-governmental organizations along with international observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament monitored the elections.